Weight and Measure
by Polysyllabicus
Summary: DiNozzo and Gibbs find themselves in a desperate situation when they search the home of a suspected bomb-maker.


**Disclaimer: Neither NCIS nor any characters thereof are used with any pretensions of ownership or profit.**

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><p>The call from dispatch had come in early, only a short while after they had all settled down at their desks and stowed their weapons. It was a sudden lead on their current case, in the form of a complaint phoned in to the local LEOs that someone had decided might be worth passing on to NCIS.<p>

This information was a very welcome spark of life on a case that was threatening to go cold. A few days before, a bomb had been discovered sitting on the porch of a suburban home; a wary mailman had called the police to report that a package - which was already present when he approached the home to do his deliveries - was emitting a strange smell, and appeared to be oozing an acidic solution. The LEOs had been called, and after making sure that the home's residents weren't inside and in need of evacuation (no one was home, fortunately simplifying the situation), they had approached for a closer look. Determining that the odd-smelling, fluid-leaking package did in fact look more like a potentially dangerous device than like a box of groceries forgotten and decomposing on the stoop, they had called in the bomb squad.

The squad had carefully secured the package, and found it to be host to a poorly-made bomb which had failed to go off. In fact, it was unlikely it would have exploded at all, thanks to an apparent failure on the maker's part to take into account the speed at which a corrosive chemical could eat through its casing and completely contaminate the rest of the components. Providential failure aside, the intent to commit a dangerous crime was certainly there, and if the device had operated as planned it was very possible that someone would have been killed. Luck seemed to be thoroughly against the would-be bomber, for the occupants hadn't even been home that morning, though they usually were. They had rushed out of the house near dawn, running their half-blind and aged cocker spaniel to an emergency animal clinic after it had tripped down the staircase and fractured its leg.

The target home had belonged to a retired Navy corpsman and his wife, and the corpsman had requested that NCIS investigate the incident. Sylvester and Marian Consalvi, both in their mid-40s, had been had been baffled by the attack. Marian worked as an assistant librarian, and seemed to have never upset anyone a day in her life, unless it was by refusing to give adult patrons any cookies when she brought in snacks for the kids in the summer reading club. As for Sylvester, his main occupation after leaving the Navy due to the sudden onset of rheumatoid arthritis was a small landscaping business. Mostly he decided where to put things, and hired other people to do the putting, he had joked. Aside from a few customers who felt their wishes for perfectly-shaped topiary hadn't been adequately realised, he, too, could think of no one who would wish him harm.

The team had dug deeper into the couple's history, deciding that Sylvester Consalvi's service history was a good place to begin looking for a motive. However, they found his records spit-and-polish clean: no disciplinary actions or mentions of interpersonal conflicts. There were no signs that he had any disreputable skeletons in his closet besides a few AWOLs when he had first been dating his future wife.

After a day and a half without any obvious suspects, they even began to look at the possibility of this being the result of a literal 'turf war', McGee running deeper checks on those of Consalvi's customers who could best be described as disgruntled. When that failed to generate any leads, they re-examined the details of Marian's earlier life. Tony conducted an over-the-phone interview with one of her old college roommates and McGee ran background checks on her former classmates and family members. At the same time, Ziva and Gibbs talked to some of those who had served with Sylvester.

In the midst of these explorations came the tip. They were told that local LEOs had received a call regarding strange smells and odd sounds coming from a suburban residence. The caller - a terrorism-fearing neighbour - said that the occupant had moved in only a few weeks ago.

"Shane Kemp," Tony pronounced, drawing out the words. "Age 23, former Ecology student, former bartender, current drop-out."

"Family?" Gibbs asked, seated behind his desk while the team performed their usual information-dispensing dance.

"His parents both died when he was a kid, and he was raised by his older brother, Geoffrey Kemp," McGee said, switching the picture on the plasma from Shane Kemp's driver's license to Geoffrey Kemp's service record.

"_Lance Corporal_ Geoffrey Kemp," Ziva approached the screen.

McGee nodded. "Lance Corporal Kemp died last year."

"That fits with when Shane dropped out," Tony commented.

"Dropping out is a long way from making IEDs," stated Gibbs.

"We do not know that Kemp is making explosive devices. Strange smells and odd behaviour are not even enough for circumstantial evidence."

"If they were, McGee here would already be arrested."

McGee only darted his eyes at Tony with a brief withering glance, passing over the comment with ease born of endurance. "And we don't have anything linking him to the Consalvis, either." He then quickly amended, "Yet," after noting that Gibbs looked quite displeased.

"Did Kemp and Consalvi serve together at any point?" Gibbs asked, leaning back in his chair.

"I don't think so, Boss. But I will - I will keep looking," McGee bobbed his head, and sat down at his desk to match his words to deeds.

DiNozzo leaned against the front of his own desk, continued to look at the file he held, tilting his head and frowning as he read. "Apparently Lance Corporal Kemp wasn't killed in action. He was wounded in Afghanistan back in 2008, and was transferred stateside. When he died last year, the death was believed to be the result of a bloodclot. The coroner figured the clot had been caused by his original injury."

"He was wounded, and Consalvi was a corpsman. It is small, but it is a connection," opined the Israeli, with raised brows.

Gibbs stood up with his customary suddenness, and spoke as he gathered his gun and blazer. The rest of the team stood straighter, ready to reach for their own gear. "McGee, keep looking at Kemp - both Kemps. DiNozzo, David, you're with me."

"Yes Boss! Where to, Boss?" DiNozzo grabbed his things with joy, trotting to Gibbs' side, while Ziva gathered her own gear more sedately.

"We're gonna go talk to Shane Kemp. Take a look around, maybe. We don't have enough for a warrant, but we can bring him in to answer a few questions."

They drove to Kemp's rental home quickly; not that there was any option except 'quickly' when Gibbs was driving.

"Gibbs," he answered his cell, with one hand on the wheel as he took a turn that seemed a bit less than legal, while his passengers quietly gripped whatever seemed to be bolted down.

"Boss, Consalvi helped treat Kemp when he was injured in Afghanistan!" McGee exclaimed.

"That'd give his little brother some motive, maybe he figures that Consalvi messed up and caused the clot. Keep digging." Gibbs hung up, then relayed the new information to his fear-gripped passengers.

They pulled up to the house more quickly than they really should have, and walked up the handful of steps of a porch that had seen a great number of better days.

"Looks like he hasn't been spending his new free time on home renovations," DiNozzo said as Gibbs rapped on the door.

Thudding, then silence. Gibbs knocked again, making the sharp raps seem like a threat.

Another thud, like a door being closed with little care. Then, finally, the front door opened, and a sweaty Shane Kemp was before them. He looked different than his drivers' license photo: his reddish hair was limp and greasy, he obviously hadn't shaved in a few days, and his nervousness was palpable. "Can I help you?" he asked in a voice that quavered a bit too much.

"Shane Kemp?" DiNozzo inquired perfunctorily.

"Yeah. I - that's me."

"We're from NCIS," Gibbs stepped closer, putting his foot in the doorjamb without comment, and crowding Kemp backwards.

Kemp reared his head back, obviously intimidated, but spoke with bravado, "What do you guys want?"

"We want to talk to you about your brother." Gibbs paused to increase the effect of his next words, "And about Sylvester Consalvi."

Kemp's huge, startled eyes rolled back momentarily, and his head shook denial before his mouth could say it. "No, no, I don't know anybody Consalvi. I don't know anything. No."

"You sure about that?" Gibbs leaned in.

"No way! I mean, I don't, I don't know anything about Consalvi."

Gibbs nodded, like a cobra nods its hooded head. "Well then, you won't mind coming to answer a few other questions. Will you?"

"If you have nothing to hide," Ziva smoothly said, secretly feeling that her skills for intimidation were wasted on such an easily cowed subject.

"Uh." Kemp glanced backward over his shoulder, quickly. "Uh," he said again. "Okay?"

"Ziva, take him in," Gibbs ordered. "DiNozzo," he turned to the agent, who had observed from behind his sunglasses, leaning along the wall, "You and me will take a look around. That okay with you, Kemp?" This was obviously not a question. Gibbs was not above taking advantage of an intimidated, frazzled suspect.

"I, I don't -" Kemp's eyes were ludicrously large as he stood on the porch step with his arm in Ziva's grip. She gripped just a bit harder, and he glanced at her, then back at the house.

"You don't know Consalvi. And you've got nothing to hide," Gibbs said blandly. "That's right, isn't it?"

"Yes!"

Gibbs looked at him calmly, with a slightly raised eyebrow. "So there should be no problem with us looking around."

Kemp looked down at Ziva, seeming to hope for her help. She looked at him without expression. "Okay," he stated, and Ziva took that as a cue to take him to the sedan.

"Put him in interrogation, then get McGee and get back out here," Gibbs called after her.

She nodded briefly in acknowledgement, and resumed her slightly forceful escorting, her small, graceful hand on the small of his back managing to appear to be a threat. She placed him in the back seat of the sedan, then got in the front seat, started the ignition, and with a screech zoomed away.

Tony watched the car leave, Kemp's pale face peering out the back window in sudden stark terror as he realised that his life was in danger. "We could get in trouble for this - making him ride with Ziva could count as torture."

Gibbs ignored his comment, manner blase, and pushed the front door wider. He strode into the small livingroom, quickly taking in the fraying brown canvas couch, a small tv on top of an equally small table across from the couch, and an oddly ornate wooden chair that had graced a dining room in glory days far past and now looked awkward backed up against the smoke-stained gyprock wall. A sneaker, laces trailing like jellyfish tentacles, was resting just off-centre of the room, and the toes of its mate peeked from behind the television table. A pizza box lay shiny with grease lay beside the couch, with a congealed slice sitting on the couch's arm, where a few flies congregated.

"Homey," DiNozzo followed his boss inside.

"Check out the kitchen, DiNozzo. I'll take the bedroom."

"If the kitchen is anything like the livingroom, I might need a Hazmat suit." Tony grimaced, rubbing his hands unconsciously on his dark-grey suit-jacket.

Stepping into the kitchen, he wrinkled his nose. The sink was full of dishes beyond its capacity, and a few plates had evidently already taken the plunge to land on the floor in front of the sink. He tried not to start wondering what the bits of food crusted on the toppled dishes had once been, and waved away a curious fly. "I'd better not catch ebola," he muttered as he opened a cupboard.

Gibbs was going through the dresser drawers in the bedroom, though it hardly seemed necessary as the dresser itself was almost empty, its intended contents all around the room in piles of upsetting odour. The matress of the double bed didn't even have a sheet on it, and the single quilt was a lump at the foot. There was no alarm clock, no lamp, no book or bedside table, just haphazard layers of clothing, a dresser that contained mostly winter socks and a few sweatshirts, and a bed.

He crouched to look under the bed, grimacing in annoyance at the pain in his knees. Maybe he should have made DiNozzo search the bedroom. Steadying himself with one hand on the matress - refusing to consider how dirty the matress might be in light of the state of the rest of the place - he pointed his flashlight into the space. Evidently home upkeep really wasn't big on Kemp's list of priorities, as the bedroom's light fixture had a burnt out bulb, and the only ambient light came from the open door.

Contorting his head down, maintaining the crouch, the circle of Gibbs' flaslight showed only more socks, a moldy piece of something that might have once been pizza, an overturned mug resting in a dried stain, and dirt.

Tony was having about the same amount of luck. The cupboards were as empty as the sink was full, with only a few items remaining to testify to what each cupboard had been intended to hold. One was home to a single can of corn. Another bore a small container of paprika and a ziploc baggie of raisins. The last cupboard, presumably meant to house dishes, featured a plastic measuring cup and an out-of-place-looking cereal bowl.

He closed the door with a squeak of a hinge, and turned, unhappily, to the task of looking in the fridge. He crossed the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator door, and immediately threw his left hand up to shield his nose. Either the milk had gone bad, or there was a dead raccoon in the crisper.

He let the fridge door shut, and plucked open the door of the under-sink cupboard. He leaned back to avoid the flurry of flies which escaped, he gingerly regarded the space. This was where a garbage bin had presumably once been placed, but now the entire cupboard was a pit of trash shoved in and packed to near solidity. He looked for a moment more, afraid that if he disturbed the magic that fused all of the mess together in a jenga-like construction, he'd cause a trash avalanche. Closing the door, gingerly, he decided to leave this part to one of the probies. With a cheerful smirk he moved down the hall.

Meanwhile, Gibbs had finished in the bedroom and was now looking around the unpleasantly moist little washroom. Mildew and mold had begun to form on the corners of the ceiling, and the shower door was partly off of is track. A scrunched-up towel was wedged into the crevice where shower and floor met, and by the looks of it had been there futilely attempting block the leak for a long time. The small medicine cabinet held a tipped over and empty bottle of rubbing alcohol, a toothbrush, and the cap to a tube of toothpaste - no toothpaste tube in sight. The sink was oddly stained, and was beginning to grow algae around the taps. Gibbs regarded the toilet for a moment, then decided that really, McGee or Ziva could take care of the more in-depth investigation in that area. With a barely-visible smirk, he went out into the hall, and at the same moment heard DiNozzo call.

"Boss, I thought this was a closet; turns out it's a basement. Your natural habitat. Good place for building stuff. Like boats. Or bombs," he inclined his head and held open the door with a theatric air.

Gibbs ignored him and stepped past, pulling out his flashlight when he couldn't see a light switch in the dim vague glow from the rest of the house. The light switch required a long reach, and when he flipped it on, they saw a steep set of stairs ending in a bare concrete floor.

Behind him DiNozzo pulled out his gun, just in case someone was lurking in this uncleared space. Gibbs tramped down, hand on his own gun, and after a quick glance muttered, "Clear". As Tony came down the stairs with a somehow bouncing step, Gibbs flipped over some papers on the nearest workbench. Benches and and work tables lined the room, set against the walls. In the centre, where in Gibbs' basement the boat would have sat, was simply another table.

Unlike the other surfaces, this central table was free from papers, loose tools, and other such detritus. It was clean, wooden, like a butcher's block, but had a few dark marks of burns.

Rubbermaid bins and less-reputable trashcans, buckets, and cardboard boxes filled the space beneath the benches. A few coils of yellow rope were scattered about, even a few gardening tools - a rake in one corner, with a hoe lying on the ground beside it, and further over a clay planting pot.

What was odd was the lack of mess. The desks had great piles on them, but it looked more like a great deal had been quickly hidden away. On one bench a tall pile of coils of twine and loops of stronger rope seemed oddly shaped, and Gibbs lifted the fibres aside to reveal a stack of paper. Daring DiNozzo to comment, he didn't even bother trying to read them without his glasses, just passing the papers over to Tony.

After a moment DiNozzo said, "Woah. Geez, even most of the junkies back in Baltimore would at least flush this kind of stuff when the cops came calling."

"What is it?" Gibbs demanded with a huff.

"It's a printout. An online instructional guide to bomb-making," he flipped a page, "Not sure how good it is, but it looks like it has enough of the right ingredients to make an impact."

"Might be enough to hold him and do a more thorough look at the place. First we're gonna call in the bomb squad. Out." Gibbs pulled out his cell phone as he nodded in an instruction for Tony to precede him up the stairs.

McGee answered the rings with a "Boss."

Then noise. And the leap of adrenaline. Then red. Then black. The noise never stopping.

Then it did.


End file.
